Deployment of Robotic Agents in Uncertain Environments: Game Theoretic Rules and Simulation Studies

Abstract

The coordination of intelligent, interacting, agents is rapidly gaining importance as such systems are deployed under diverse conditions. When robots are used in teams rather than as individuals, their coordination can become more critical for system performance than their individual capabilities. The deployment strategies and communication modes play an important role in the coordination of these teams. This paper examines a Game Theoretic deployment approach to robotic teams in an unstructured environment. A simulation model is developed and used to compare the performance of gaming rules with a non-anticipatory deterministic deployment rule. The initial Game Theoretic rule can be enhanced to exhibit both locally and globally adaptive characteristics. The new rule outperforms both the deterministic algorithm and the straightforward game-theoretic rule. This is achieved by adapting to trends in local regions in the environment as well as anticipating global eventualities.